Introduction

﻿﻿Botswana is the oldest continuing and genuine democracy in Africa. For those of you who would point to South Africa, it was until recently only a very limited and non-genuine democracy, in that only the small minority of white people had the vote.﻿Not only has this dry, landlocked nation (Botswana, not, rather obviously, South Africa) maintained stable government when surrounded by cruelly brutal pseudo-democracies, dictatorships, and revolutions, but its diamond industry has managed to take it from one of the poorest nations in the world, to one of the fastest developing nations.

Mind you, what those of us in what many choose to call the West would undoubtedly call "poverty" is still by far the order of the day, and HIV/AIDS is decimating the population. In fact, it is worse than decimating the population, if we want to be overly literal, because far more than one in ten have the disease.

While Sandy McCall Smith focuses on the good things about Botswana and its mostly wonderful people, he does not ignore the negatives. They are often there, albeit usually in the background. For this reason, I believe those who regard the Mma Ramotswe books as "cosies" ("cozies", to you Americans, well, those of you from the United States of same; I hope that satisfies you Canadians) are making a mistake by underestimating the seriousness extant within the novels, albeit within what is, I guess, pretty much a "cosy" framework.

So, let’s have a look at Botswana’s history, and how it got to be what it is today. Then we'll have a bit of a look at just what it is today, and this unfortunately involves focusing on a few negatives. Sorry, but even MmaRamotswe, who quite rightly loves and is extremely proud of her wonderful country, admits to some negatives, although possibly not all of them.

Location

(sort of!)

GrumpyKoala's comments

(without the swearing!)

1. We would love to hear from you. Please email us.

2. Please click on an ad and buy something. African girls need help to achieve anywhere near their potential, and like it or not that's the best way to achieve positive change in the great but desperate continent of Africa. Money spent on this will benefit us immensely in future years (that last sentence is for those with cash who don't understand that giving simply to help people is in itself reason enough!).

3. The map points to our location, sort of.

4.Google, why the flying farts have you labelled Australia "Oceania"? Don't get me wrong, I know that's our region. But the continent is "Australia". Or perhaps it's changed since I went to school? Or is it just another case of the United States ignoring the sensibilities of a powerless country?

5. Oh, and koalas are koalas, not bloody bears! Or unbloody bears, for that matter!!

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